The Classical Tradition in Contemporary Quebecois Theatre: Patterns of Ambivalence

Abstract

In its oft-repeated attempt to achieve both "identity" and "liberation," the quebecois theatre of the sixties and seventies has turned aggressively, vociferously anti-classical. Although definitions vary as to what exactly constitutes the "classical tradition," and its ever-lurking threat of colonial dependency, one might state in general terms that the anti-classical rebellion is directed , first and foremost, at the French classics, immediate roots of the French Canadian cultural colonial tradition; by extension, it includes the entire tradition of "classical" Western theatre, from the Greeks to the twentieth century, as well as the contemporary "Establishment" theatre.